NSA “to watch everybody all the time” on line

The great James Bamford writes another deeply sourced expose of the NSA, this time for Wired magazine, about an unbelieveably massive, costly, and unconstitutional National Security Agency spy center under construction in Utah (and a twin at Oak Ridge, Tennessee).

You won't see better journalism this year, and really should read the whole thing.

Here's just one graph:

The NSA also has the ability to eavesdrop on phone calls directly and in real time. According to Adrienne J. Kinne, who worked both before and after 9/11 as a voice interceptor at the NSA facility in Georgia, in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks “basically all rules were thrown out the window, and they would use any excuse to justify a waiver to spy on Americans.” Even journalists calling home from overseas were included. “A lot of time you could tell they were calling their families,” she says, “incredibly intimate, personal conversations.” Kinne found the act of eavesdropping on innocent fellow citizens personally distressing. “It’s almost like going through and finding somebody’s diary,” she says.

A wise techie security friend told me years ago, “Live life completely openly because you are under complete surveillance anyway. There’s no such as privacy anymore. It’s gone.” Of course, the interesting revolution is when everything becomes really transparent, and we get to watch the watchers.